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New York Times Editorial. "Palestinian Peace Politics." New York Times (www.nytimes.com. June 10 2006):
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This editorial is mostly moral propaganda: it openly expresses the patriotic preferences of the New York Times. In a nutshell, it says that it is grudgingly supporting a proposal that actually constitutes a denial of democratic rights and lands in most of Palestine, and that it isn't really happy with the proposal because, antidemocratic as it is, the New York Times would prefer an outcome that is even less democratic.
Despite being mostly moral propaganda, the editorial actually starts with a bit of historical propaganda. It says that most Palestinians want a two-state "solution". Well, this is probably true, but maybe not in the sense that the New York Times is saying it. Because wanting something just means wanting it more than what you have right now. What the Palestinians have right now is a one-government situation: the government of Israel, which they cannot elect or un-elect, and which is a client and dependent of the United States, decides who lives and dies in all of Palestine, the home of the Palestinians. Compared to this, most Palestinians would presumably rather have a two-government situation, in which the government of Israel, which they cannot elect, decides who lives and dies in most (but not all) of Palestine, the home of the Palestinians. It might be that many Palestinians would prefer an even better solution, in which the government that decides who lives and dies in all of Palestine, their home, is elected by them. However, many Palestinians also know that achieving this goal would be even more unlikely than the two-government solution, and that seeking it might increase the number of people who get killed, since it would mean going even more against the will of the US and Israel, who routinely kill anyone who doesn't do what they want. In short, if many Palestinians prefer an appeasement policy (a two-government situation) that is wildly unjust to themselves, but might result in less killing, rather than a policy that would seek more justice for themselves but might result in more killing, this says more about the violence and power of Israel and the US (and maybe about the value Palestinians place on life) than it does about the democratic and land claim preferences of the Palestinians.
The claim is misleading in another way as well. In reality, what most Palestinians who are advocating a two-state situation are calling for is a real two-government situation. In this real two-government situation, a whole quarter (!) of the Palestinians' historic home of Palestine would be ruled by people who are elected by the Palestinians, the majority population of Palestine. I use the term rule in its true sense: these Palestinian-elected rulers would be the people who decide who lives and dies in the tiny portion of Palestinian territory that would be "given" to the people who actually live there and own it. But a real two-government situation is not being offered by the US (the real dictator of the situation) at all, because no one is actually suggesting that Israel and the US would give up their practice of deciding who lives and dies within the so-called "Palestinian" state. No one who has power is really considering such an idea: the so-called "two-state solution" would almost certainly still mean that the US (probably acting through Israel) would continue to be the one who decides who lives and dies in all of Palestine, just as it is today. The elected "government" of the Palestinian state would not truly be the government even within its tiny territory, because two other governments would still make the decisions about which citizens to kill there. Is anyone really suggesting that if the US or Israel decided to kill somebody inside the proposed "state" of Palestine, the Palestinian government would have the right to defend its citizens? Of course not. No one has the right to defend their citizens against a US (or US-backed) attack.
It is important to note, however, that while the historical ground presented in this article is inaccurate, it is not as false as the historical position usually taken in patriotic texts about Palestine, because of one little fact: by bringing up the right of return of the Palestinians who were kicked out of the part of Palestine that Israel was taking over in 1947-1949, it actually admits, in a tiny way, that all of Palestine, including the part that is today called Israel, is the home of the Palestinians. True, it doesn't emphasize this point at all. But it doesn't deny it either. Whereas many or most other texts do, at least implicitly, deny that the land that is today called Israel is home to the Palestinians.
Having established this false historical ground upon which to act, the article then presents the patriotic preferences of the New York Times quite openly. It says:
It is the position of the New York Times that it would be good if the government of Israel got to rule all the land that it took in 1947-1949. Thus, it is the position of the New York Times that it would be good if a government that cannot be unelected by the Palestinians who were driven out of that territory is the one to decide who lives and dies in this territory, a territory whose population was almost entirely Palestinian prior to the Zionist colonization, a territory whose population was still mostly Palestinian in 1947, a territory whose land was almost all owned by Palestinians in 1947, a territory from which the Palestinians were driven by superior force, not by right. A territory that makes up more than two-thirds of the historic home of the Palestinians. Thus, it is the position of the New York Times that undemocracy in Palestine is good.
It is the position of the New York Times that it would be good if the Palestinians who were driven from their homes gave up all claims to return to them. Thus, it is the position of the New York Times that ethnic cleansing and land stealing in Palestine is good. This means that most of the people who lived in this territory in 1947 should be deprived of their homes, and more than 85 percent of the land in this territory should be stolen from the people who owned it in 1947. It means that the 1947 inhabitants of 400 Palestinian villages, scores of Palestinian towns, and the Palestinian inhabitants of the many towns whose population was mixed in 1947 should be deprived of their homes and of their democratic right to elect those who decide who lives and dies in their home.
It is the position of the New York Times that the Palestinians have no right to use violence against Israelis in the West Bank and what it calls the "other occupied territories" (as if 1967 Israel weren't also occupied territory, occupied as it was by Israel in 1947-49). Thus, it is the position of the New York Times not only that the vast majority of their lands should be stolen from the Palestinians, and that they should have zero democratic rights in most of their home, but that that they also have no right to defend themselves against aggression and takeover of their lands even within the small fraction of their lands that the New York Times admits actually are their lands.
(This policy is of course consistent with the New York Times' position on all countries, most obviously right now on Iraq and Afghanistan, but also on Iran, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and everywhere else as well; the definition of innocence is submission to the US project, whatever it might be, in anyone else's lands; resistance to the US project in your own home always makes you non-innocent in the descriptions of the New York Times.)